I. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly to policy control for data flows in wireless communication networks.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as, for example, voice, data, and so on. Typical wireless communication systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g. bandwidth, transmit power, . . . ). Examples of such multiple-access systems may include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, and the like. Additionally, the systems can conform to specifications such as third generation partnership project (3GPP), 3GPP long term evolution (LTE), ultra mobile broadband (UMB), and/or multi-carrier wireless specifications such as evolution data optimized (EV-DO), one or more revisions thereof, etc.
Generally, wireless multiple-access communication systems may simultaneously support communication for multiple mobile devices. Each mobile device may communicate with one or more access points (such as base stations, relay stations, other mobile devices using peer-to-peer or ad hoc technologies, etc.), via transmissions on forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from access points to mobile devices, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from mobile devices to access points. Further, communications between mobile devices and access points may be established via single-input single-output (SISO) systems, multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, and so forth.
The access points can provide wireless network access to the mobile devices by communicating with various components of the underlying wireless network, such as mobility management entities (MME), gateways, policy servers, etc. The mobile devices, in one example, can communicate with a network gateway using one or more internet protocol (IP) flows, and the policy server can authorize the IP flows. In addition, one or more serving or intermediate gateways can facilitate communicating between the mobile device and network gateway. The policy server provides policies to the serving gateway allowing the serving gateway to traverse the IP flows between the mobile devices and the network gateway to provide support, such as quality of service support. The IP flows, however, can additionally be encapsulated from the mobile devices to the network gateway using host based mobility depending on a mobility protocol utilized. In this regard, the serving gateway may not know the appropriate encapsulation information to successfully traverse the flows when providing support.